Printing devices, such as printers, copy machines, and multi-function peripherals (MFPs) such as the Ricoh Aficio Color 6513 system, are often designed to print header, footer, and/or separator pages in conjunction with the pages of an electronic document. As described herein, a “header” page is a page that is printed before the first page of an electronic document, a “footer” page is a page that is printed after the last page of an electronic document, and a “separator” page is a page that is printed in between at least two pages of an electronic document.
Header pages, footer pages, and separator pages may be considered to be separate from an electronic document itself. For example, when a user instructs a word processing application to print an electronic document, the original print data that represents the electronic document does not contain data for the header page, footer page, or separator pages that are described herein. Such header, footer, and separator pages are automatically added to the print data stream after the user instructs the word processing application to print the document. For example, header, footer, and separator pages might be added to the print data stream by a printing device upon receiving a print data stream that consists only of data that represents the electronic document.
Since it is common for multiple users to send electronic documents to the same printing device, header pages and footer pages are useful for separating one user's printed documents from other users' printed documents. This separation helps prevent unfortunate incidences where one user accidentally takes, along with his printed documents, another user's printed documents from an output tray of the printing device. The header pages and/or footer pages help to visually separate the printed documents in the output tray so that users can tell where one user's printed documents end and another user's printed documents begin. Alternatively, header pages and footer pages can help to separate multiple copies of the same printed document where the printing of the multiple copies was initiated by a single user.
Separator pages, on the other hand, are useful for separating sheets of print media within a printed document. Some types of print media, such as transparency sheets, tend to stick together when they come in contact with each other. Once transparency sheets become stuck together, it can be difficult and time-consuming to separate them. Additionally, because of their transparent nature, it can be difficult, when viewing a stack of transparency sheets, for a person to determine the printed contents of each transparency sheet individually. Looking down at a stack of unseparated transparency sheets, one often sees the contents of all of the sheets, and cannot tell which sheet contains which content. By automatically interleaving transparency sheets and other kinds of media with opaque, non-sticking separator pages, a printing device can obviate the problems described above.
Separator pages are typically blank. Sometimes header or footer pages are blank. Other times, some rudimentary, non-customizable information is printed on the header or footer pages. The scant information that is printed on a header or footer page is often hard-coded and cannot be changed or customized by a user of the printing device.
The inability of a user of a printing device to change, either substantially or easily, the printed contents of header, footer, or separator page is unfortunate. If the printed contents of header and footer pages could be customized easily by users of a printing device, then the users might find it easier to distinguish between multiple printed documents sitting in the printing device's output tray. The users might not need to scrutinize the header and footer pages as carefully to determine whose printed document was whose.
Based on the foregoing, there is a need for a printing device that allows users to customize header, footer, and separator pages, and that allows them to do so through easily-used and convenient means.